by The 12 Apostates 51 Replies latest jw friends
Did L. Ron Hubbard really exist? Probably doesn't matter........what's true is true, what is not is not.
Be it a scienrology pamphlet or the book of Acts, what matters is what's true in the document, not whether the characters within them existed or not.
If you could find out with certainty that a man called Ieshua/Jesus existed at that time, in that place, with those teachings..... would it matter at all as to what is true?
I'm not questioning the historicity of anybody. I'm saying that all of your reasons to doubt the reality behind the Jesus of the gospels could equally be said about many other characters from history.
You said in your OP that your thoughts are 'Based on the limited research I've conducted over the past few days'. I agree it is an interesting topic but I think you should dig a lot deeper.
The best case for a historical Jesus is probably made by Bart Ehrman. The best and most recent case for a mythical Jesus is made by Richard Carrier.
No I know you weren't seriously questioning the historicity of anyone. You were suggesting that if we accept that Jesus never existed then perhaps we ought to accept that many others with similarly flimsy supporting evidence never existed. And I would agree actually, perhaps Alexander the Great never existed, I'm open to the possibility. But I don't care so much, because the question of his existence isn't quite the hot topic of Jesus's existence. Do you get me? I wasn't raised by Alexander's witnesses.
On the other hand however, I'm not sure that 'well if Jesus never existed then maybe no one did' (intentional exaggeration btw!) is such a good argument. It doesn't speak to the historicity of Jesus to concede that the historicity of many other historical figures is equally shaky, quite the opposite. It speaks to the limitations of historical scholarship in general.
I will dig deeper, there's no reason not to. I was simply checking in with where I'm currently at.
And lastly I have to say it doesn't give me much confidence in the idea of a mythical Jesus to hear that its best proponent is Richard Carrier. Mind you, I don't ultimately have a real horse in the race, as an atheist. Whether Jesus existed or not, he certainly wasn't the messiah.
Among the words attributed to Jesus — whether he said them or not — are some brilliant insights, some facile platitudes and some dangerous dogma.
Did L. Ron Hubbard really exist? Probably doesn't matter........what's true is true, what is not is not.
Be it a scienrology pamphlet or the book of Acts, what matters is what's true in the document, not whether the characters within them existed or not.
If you could find out with certainty that a man called Ieshua/Jesus existed at that time, in that place, with those teachings..... would it matter at all as to what is true?
Well yes, but then we'll just end up in a 'does anything really matter' spiral, if we follow that to its conclusion.
Among the words attributed to Jesus — whether he said them or not — are some brilliant insights, some facile platitudes and some dangerous dogma.
And of course many of those brilliant insights weren't exactly original.
Jesus? You mean that thing that is the perfect slave archetype? That thing that is designed to take all of our power and reroute it to enslave the whole earth, with the end purpose of enabling the reptilian race from Pleiades to come here after all other life is wiped out? (Hint: they need it around 80 degrees C to live--global warming beyond anything we could create).
The only Christ I recognize is the sun. Yup, the sun. And the sun is a star. It gives us life, it "dies" every year around December 21 to be "resurrected" on Christmas, and it fulfills many of the traits (the positive ones, not the traits of siphoning off your work to enslave the universe) that were attributed to that filthy rag that people call jesus. And yes, they can take that bible and shove it in the Pleiades where it belongs.
Well now..
It certainly would have been nice if Jesus bothered to write things down but he couldn't or didn't want to.
It would have been nice if a couple of his followers wrote stuff down. But apparently they couldn't or didn't want to.
Now my limited understanding is that just about every village had a scribe back in those days. So it wouldn't have been that difficult to copy down the high lights of what Jesus thought and taught.
What we do know is we have an oral history told in many different languages as Christianity was spread along the Roman trade routes.
And maybe that is the key to the success of Christianity. And why it really hasn't been necessary to prove that Jesus lived.
This became an adaptable religion. Differences in language weren't a problem. Difference in culture and traditions could be accommodated as people could find a way forward in the simple words of someone called Jesus.
I don't think this was the master plan. The Jesus of the Bible was Israel centric,and anti the religious leaders of his day. He was also violent at times.
What Jesus became accountable for was the opportunity to take his simple words and teachings and blend them into whatever nation or state needed to find a new way of looking at things.
Take Greece......the old gods were dying off, the philosophy of the Greek teachers was not always applicable.
The Jewish religion was welcomed in Greece and it paved the way for Christianity.
To this day Christianity adapts and grows.....as a movement it does not really matter if Jesus was real or not since no one wrote anything down when he lived.....maybe what we are left with are the best intentions of a made up character.
Don't all ancient civilizations have their favorite folk hero whose life is based on urban legend? There is absolutely o way to verify the validity and "truth" of ancient writings during times when superstition, folk lore, and oral history molded and controlled people's thinking and beliefs.
A person that walked on water, fed 5,000 on 3 fish and 5 loaves of bread, brought the dead back to life only for them to die a second time, etc., etc., sure sound like myth to me!
just saying!
Myth maybe but what a swell guy.
but if he comes to earth and starts killing people who didn't worship ......... uuum maybe not so swell.
Lets face it Jesus was the most humanistic god ever created and envisioned by man throughout human history.
